Ben Affleck’s 2016 motion film The Accountant has a surprisingly huge cult following. Regardless of considerably lackluster efficiency on the field workplace, followers of the film (together with Affleck himself) have been hoping for a sequel for years, and now it lastly looks like it’s taking place. Amazon MGM and Artists Fairness, Affleck’s manufacturing firm, have acquired the rights to the collection from Warner Bros. and are transferring ahead with The Accountant 2, the businesses introduced Thursday.
Whereas the announcement didn’t embrace many particulars concerning the sequel, we do know many of the unique solid is coming again. Affleck will return within the title position, together with Jon Bernthal, J.Okay. Simmons, and Cynthia Addai-Robinson. The film will as soon as once more be directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior) and written by Invoice Dubuque (Ozark).
It’s nice information, as a result of The Accountant guidelines. It’s a blatantly ridiculous motion film that makes use of tax paperwork to kick-start 007-level espionage and violence. The film stars Ben Affleck because the titular Accountant, a pencil pusher who’s turned his genius-level math expertise into an empire, principally by working with legal organizations to verify their books look good ought to any feds come knocking. After all, all this goes unsuitable at some point and everybody finally ends up scorching on his heels. That is the place the Accountant’s different expertise come into play: He’s rattling good with a gun.
If all male movie roles will be damaged down into both Matt Damon roles (nerdy, unassuming, bookish however alarmingly competent) or Ben Affleck roles (brutish, good however would completely nonetheless bully a nerd, smoother than you’d anticipate) then the lead character of The Accountant is totally a Damon position. Which is precisely what makes casting Ben Affleck a lot enjoyable.
Picture: Warner Bros/Everett Assortment
The Accountant’s identify is Christian Wolff — sure, it’s a metaphor, clearly — and he’s nice with numbers. As beforehand acknowledged, he’s additionally actually good with weapons, his fists, and principally any typical technique of loss of life and destruction we are able to think about. Within the precise means that James Bond and Ethan Hunt typically shock their enemies with their intellects, Wolff surprises them together with his violence. However that is what makes casting Affleck such a enjoyable alternative. The boring model of the position would make him a demure nerd whose proficiency at violence is surprising. As an alternative, Affleck spends many of the film wanting like he’d slightly break a pc than use one.
However regardless of enjoying in opposition to his ordinary on-screen persona, Affleck appears fully at house portraying Christian’s mind. He delivers the character’s explanations of varied plots and schemes with successful confidence (and principally with out the appeal that made him well-known), buying and selling it in for a stiff formality that higher matches the character.
Picture: Warner Bros/Everett Assortment
However The Accountant has extra going for it than simply Affleck. The remainder of the film is stuffed with folks you’re at all times comfortable to see in a film, like J.Okay. Simmons, Anna Kendrick, John Lithgow, Jean Good, and Jon Bernthal. It’s an all-star solid of “oh shit, I forgot they had been on this,” which is a part of what’s made it an indicator of cable channels because it was launched in 2016.
Extra so even than the stacked solid, what makes The Accountant sing is its surprisingly nice motion. The film is stuffed to the brim with incredible shootouts, fistfights, and brawls, dealt with principally by second unit director Sam Hargrave, who would go on to direct each motion pictures in Chris Hemsworth’s brutal Extraction collection. However even past the motion, director O’Connor manages to make the violence of the film’s world really feel prefer it infects each scene, including an exciting stress to the quantity crunching that makes embezzlement and skirting tax legislation really feel as tense as dodging bullets.
The Accountant’s sequel could not come out for a couple of extra years, however it’s good figuring out it’s on the way in which. Extra importantly, it’s thrilling that the undertaking is in Affleck’s very succesful and enthusiastic arms. The excellent news is, whereas we await the sequel to reach, the unique nonetheless kicks ass and is at all times enjoyable to revisit.
The Accountant is streaming on Apple TV Plus, and can be out there for digital rental/buy on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.